As our more techie readers are no doubt aware, CES is currently happening in Las Vegas. CES is the international Consumer Electronics Showcase. Five days of cutting edge techno-goodness. With the advent of the Internet of Things, smart home products have been gaining in development and popularity. With products like Google’s Nest serving as the hub to a connected home more and more interesting things are being developed that Work with Nest.
Here are a few smart home related products from this year’s CES that caught our eye:
Smart Fridge 2.0
Whirlpool was showing off its Smart French Door Refrigerator, which boasts Wi-Fi connectivity and compatibility with the Nest Learning Thermostat. As a smart home device, the fridge will sync with an app on your phone over Wi-Fi to notify you if it looses power or needs a new filter. The Whirlpool Smart French Door Refrigerator also syncs with Nest via Nest Rush Hour Rewards. Sign up, and your thermostat will tell your fridge to delay the defrost cycle until off-peak hours. This could lead to a significant reduction in your electricity use. Pretty nifty. The Whirlpool Smart French Door Refrigerator will start selling in the US this May, with a starting price of $3,800. It will come in black, white, or fingerprint-resistant stainless steel.
Voice-activated Oven
Dacor’s new voice-activated oven ranges made their debut at this year’s CES. This series of oven and ranges feature an “IQ Controller” and “IQ Remote” app that works with Android and iOS. The app enables you to use voice-activation to turn the oven on or off, switch settings and set timers. Have the oven perfectly pre-heated by the time you get home! These new ranges also feature a touch-screen, which features the Discovery iQ Recipe Box, which shows recipes right on its screen. You can use the Dacor iQ cooking app on Android phones along with it.
Sleepnumber “IT” Bed
Sleep trackers are popular these days. Companies like Fitbit and Jawbone manufacture “wearables” that track your every movement and activity, including sleep. Sleepnumber has entered the market with an interesting new take with its IT Bed. Sleepnumber built its measurement technology into a piece of furniture, a seamless addition to hour home environment. The Sleepnumber bed will also learn from your sleep patterns, then sync up with your smart home to improve them. Another product that Works with Nest.
Smart home hub
Google isn’t the only company developing smart home hubs. LG unveiled its LG Smart ThinQ Hub. The ThinQ Hub serves as a smart gateway to smart sensors and connected appliances in the home while also displaying reminders from personal calendars and streaming music from its built-in speaker. The Smart ThinQ Hub monitors, controls and collects information from home appliances such as washing machines, refrigerators, ovens, air conditioners and a variety of other home appliances.
The Internet of Things is opening up a whole new world of opportunities for the connected smart home. Connecting appliances like refrigerators and ovens, washing machines and air conditioners, to the internet has the potential for enormous energy savings. This technology is still very new, therefore kinda expensive. But as the technology spreads, the costs will come down. And as the costs come down and the technology spreads, the Internet of Things has the potential to save users lots of dollars and kilowatt-hours at the same time.